


Barroom Brawls, Fireworks, and Kisses

by danceswithhamsters01



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Meeting Again, Modern Era, Reincarnation, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 23:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17273546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01
Summary: Taken from a prompt challenge in discord.Love Interest Challenge: Three Prompts For The Love Interest- It encompasses anyone Love Interest in the game, canon or not canon. In this instance, for today, write the responses to these prompts from the LI's POV ...Prompt 3: Past Lives Reincarnation: Several ages have passed, Thedas is in the Modern Day. The LI bumps into your OC meet, become friends then lovers, and start having flashbacks to another time. Eventual ending: Both of them realizing who they were to each other in another time.





	Barroom Brawls, Fireworks, and Kisses

**Author's Note:**

> This piece takes place little over a thousand years after the end of the 5th Blight. And yes, there still are Grey Wardens floating around Thedas this far in the future.

Pairing: the artists formerly known as Zevran Arainai & Sevarra Amell.

 

It had to be pure luck. A brief look across the room, eyes catching and holding them in place as they stared. Around them, time seemed to stop, the barroom brawl no longer quite as important as it had been seconds before.

 

Eyes like silver coins, back when people still used physical tender, rather than electronic credits; hair like a starless night and skin as pale as the moons when they bothered to show their faces to the folk of Thedas. She was small and delicate, as far as humans went. _This_ _i_ _s someone the ancient bards would’ve made songs about_ , he thought.

 

She felt her mouth wanting to water as she looked at him. His elven eyes were the color of honey when he was in the light, but when shadows passed over him, they took on a greenish reflective tint, much like a cat’s. His form was well muscled but lithe, bronze skin and golden hair making her think of earth and warm sunshine. He was impossibly beautiful, at least if anyone asked for her opinion on the matter, which they hadn’t.

 

Time sped back up the moment the beer bottle smashed against his temple. He saw her look of dismay before he found himself toppling to greet the rustic wooden floor. The bar’s whole theme was retro; real wooden floors and furniture, actual ceramic mugs, and beer bottles – very expensive, by the way – made of actual glass. Someone, likely the dwarf a few feet away from him, picked up one of the stools – made with real wood – and smashed it on to the man who’d sneaked up on him with the beer bottle. This had done nothing to encourage the brawl to stop; a Vashoth in a Grey Warden uniform snarled and picked up the dwarf by his collar, saying something the elf couldn’t understand in his current pain-induced haze.

 

She ducked and weaved, very narrowly avoiding getting hit by any of the brawlers. The Vashoth in Grey Warden fatigues had hurled the dwarf across the room for daring to call him an “ox man.” The dwarf, to his credit, was sturdy enough to stand up from the ruins of the table he’d shattered by landing on it arse-first and bellowed another epithet, shaking splinters from his hair and beard. She managed to reach the gorgeous elf without incident. She pulled out a handkerchief from a pocket and began lightly brushing debris from his temple area. A flying mug narrowly missing her head made the woman decide to wrap an arm around the elven man and make for the fire exit.

 

She led him away from the door once outside and down the alley, ducking behind a dumpster before letting him go. He felt his vision swimming as he leaned against the container and slowly slid down into a sitting position. She knelt in front of him, eyes scanning the extent of his injuries while dabbing away at the blood trickling from his head.

 

“You don’t look so good, handsome,” she said. Quickly scanning their surroundings, she bit her lip before continuing. “Trust me? I promise it won’t hurt.”

 

 _Sweet Maker, even her voice_ _i_ _s delicate._ If it weren’t for the damned splitting headache, he would’ve tried to flirt. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut, mostly to block out nausea caused by the double vision he was experiencing, and nodded. He heard a half-whispered chant as fingers gently traced a pattern on to his temples. Not even a second later, he could see, even behind closed lids, a brief flash of green light. With that light came a sensation of cold and… itching? He could almost swear he felt his skin knitting itself together. It was an odd sensation, to say the least.

 

“There. That should do it. It’ll take a few days to heal the rest of the way, though.”

 

He opened first one eye and then the other. The double vision was gone, along with the pain. Silver eyes were searching him over, concern weighing heavily on her features. He could smell faint hints of lilac, probably her perfume, in spite of their very close proximity to a dumpster.

 

“You. You’re a… a...” He searched for the word in vain, it danced just out of his tongue’s reach, taunting him.

 

She froze, looking as if she wanted to bolt but couldn’t. Finally, she was able to at least use her words. “Well, it seems you’ll be okay. I… I should go.”

 

He caught her wrist before she could even take a step. “Wait. Please. Let me start over.”

 

She quirked a brow at him, befuddled by the wan smile he shot her way.

 

“Thank you for helping me out back there. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Zacharias Arainai, Zach to my friends. Who might you be, oh lovely vision?”

 

She blinked several times. Clearly, that hadn’t been what she was expecting.

 

“Amell. Leonorah Amell. A medic from the Circle, and trying to avoid that giant bore of a Grey Warden who was trying very hard to convince me to join up. I think he was a hot minute from conscripting me.”

 

 _Mage. That’s the word. She is a mage._ The chanting and pretty lights made sense, now.

 

“We don’t get many mages in this part of Rialto,” he said. “I thought the Circle based itself in the capital?”

 

She took a seat beside him, seemingly discarding any notion of fleeing. “That is true. But I’m not from Antiva City’s Circle. I’m… traveling. Something of a graduation present, really. I recently finished the program for my area of study. I’m from Denerim’s Circle.”

 

He grinned. “That explains the accent.”

 

(The next evening)

 

They sat up on a hill, a little ways out of the city, but still having a good view of the harbor. The city always put up a spectacular fireworks display during the hour leading up to midnight on First Day.

 

“15 minutes until the show begins, you’ll love it,” he grinned.

 

As fortune would have it, the pretty mage was in the city for another week and agreed to a date. Normally, for the eve of First Day, he would be in the city proper, at a party and mixing with all the colorful people that showed up to celebrate. Something in his gut had told him that a romantic picnic with just the two of them would be a hit instead of being crushed in the crowd and noise as the old year left and the new one arrived.

 

“Well, I do enjoy a show. So long as we’re not dodging anything,” she grinned.

 

Dipping a strawberry in chocolate, she held it up, offering it to him. He acted as if to nip her finger before taking the offered treat, drawing out a shriek of a laugh from her. For some reason, this felt so familiar, as if he’d done this before, but he hadn’t been… him… at the time. He shook off the feeling and poured two glasses of red wine, a vintage from around Red Cliffe. He didn’t know why that city seemed to mean something to him, he’d never been that far south in his entire life. But the moment he’d spotted the bottle in the shop, he knew he needed to buy it. They lightly clinked glasses in a toast and sipped.

 

The first mortar sailed skyward from a ship in the harbor, bursting into green sparkles that took the shape of a tree. One of the Dalish clans were in charge of that year’s show, it was only natural that they’d find a way to give it their own special touch. More mortars shot upward, bursting into a pink rose, a golden halla, and a blue raven once they were high enough in the sky. The pair watched raptly from their blanket on the hill, light from the displays washing over them briefly.

 

Hiss. Pop-pop-pop. Another mortar bloomed in the sky.The “ooh” and “ahh” from the crowd reached even the couple’s far-off perch. All too soon, the countdown started.

 

“10! 9! 8!”

 

His gaze turned to her.

 

“7! 6! 5!”

 

She smiled, catching him in the act of watching her. They inched closer.

 

“4! 3! 2!”

 

She cupped his chin, eyes drifting shut as she caught the spicy scent of his cologne. There was perhaps only a hair’s width of space between their lips. So close, yet so far away.

 

“One!” The crowd roared as a rapid succession of mortars were shot into the sky, bursting into all manner of colors, decorating both the sky and its reflection in the bay below.

 

He claimed her lips and tongue with his own, fingers weaving into her hair. Images flooded his mind, flashes of another time, another life. It was him, but not him. She was there, but not her. But they had been there, they had done all of those things. Meeting. Traveling. Falling in love. Fending off forces of those who had wrongly accused them. Desperately rallying an army to fight… _a Blight?_ Over a thousand years ago, but they had fought and won. “Slave” hadn’t been the exact word for what he was, but it was close enough. Neither of them had been free before the events that had them meet. After their victory, the former slave and the mage had married and later ran away together.

 

Their lips parted as their eyes flew open.

 

“Did you--” “Did you see--” They both started at the same time, shocked.

 

Bit by bit, they discovered that they’d witnessed different sides of the same story. A motherless elven boy was sold into slavery and bought by the Antivan Crows of old. A young girl was orphaned, later found to have the curse of magic and taken in by the ancient Circle of Magi. They grew up, she was conscripted into the Grey Wardens, and they met as opponents in battle. But they didn’t leave that battle as enemies. Their lives were entwined for the rest of their days.

 

The first rays of daylight were beginning to peer over the horizon by the time they’d finished talking about their shared… vision? Hallucination? Whatever it was.

 

“Wow. Either this is one hell of a dream, or there was something special in that wine,” she chuckled.

 

“Or...” he hummed, “it could’ve been real, perhaps?”

 

A lop-sided smile claimed her mouth before she chuckled. Something, an old memory, told him that the crooked smiles were her sincere ones.

 

“Well, in that case… I have an idea.”

 

He turned to his gaze to her.

 

“Want to run away again, just for the hell of it? Just you and me? We don’t even have to fight a war this time.”


End file.
